I know this seems somewhat out of order, but a reader dropped me a note asking about how to get himself noticed so he could land a job. There are tons of people out there who want to become bloggers, and just because you have a dazzling resume, someone else probably does also. This is where the extra little things will help you get a leg up.

Take Any Job As Your First One

There are a lot of blogs out there that will pay you for your articles, but there are also some that will pay you next to nothing, and sometimes nothing is exactly what you’ll get. Yes, you may want to make some nice money from blogging, but when you don’t have any experience and/or any articles to show a perspective employer, you have to build them up somewhere.

The first blogging job I took was … less than ideal, and I don’t even include it on my resume at this point. The pay was okay, but they had no clue how to manage writers. It was pretty much a miserable experience, but it gave me some articles to show to other sites that I was interested in working with.

You can also pursue the route of being an intern. It will be just what you think an internship will be like with no pay, but it gets you familiar with blogging platforms, deadlines and you can show off some published articles to other sites.

Start Your Own Blog

Running your own blog won’t impress people nearly as much as professional work, but it certainly doesn’t hurt you. One of the first blogs I worked for was concerned by my lack of professional posts, but the fact that I had blogged on my personal site for 2 and a half years at that point impressed them because they said it showed that I was “tenacious”, and that I obviously didn’t give up on things.

If you do start a blog, always write with the idea a potential employer will look a it, something I didn’t do that in the early days, and that was because I had no clue I was going to go into this. I survived it, but you would be better off to start with that in mind.

Increase Your Digital Footprint

One of the most overlooked aspects of being a blogger is making sure you understand the environment you are going to be working in. Some people easily ignore the digital world around them because they feel it doesn’t apply to them, but if you are going to be working on the Internet, even if its for a knitting blog, you need to understand the keys to promotion.

Some employers will ask you in advance if you understand social promotion, and a few them will even look you up without you knowing it, so it is best to be out there in advance. Not only do you need to just have accounts on sites, but you need to have built up some history and be familiar with how the systems work.

Sites you should most definitely have accounts on:

Digg

Facebook

StumbleUpon

Twitter

Again, you may think this would only apply to technology focused blogs, but it applies to all blogs as you work in a technical medium. Also, remember that anything you say online can be found, so be mindful of what you post on Facebook and similar sites if you are trying to get noticed.

Going Forward

Right now I don’t have any further parts of this series planned, but if there is anything specific you would like addressed, please feel free to email me or leave a comment about it. I am more than willing to continue this series.

This series originally appeared on SeanPAune.com and is reprinted here by permission.

Advertisement

Sean P. Aune has been a professional technology blogger since July 2007, but his love of tech dates back to at least 1976 when his parents bought...Sean P. Aune has been a professional technology blogger since July 2007, but his love of tech dates back to at least 1976 when his parents bought...